


Quirks

by hidden_mochii



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Cryptids, Established Relationship, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Period-Typical Homophobia, hand holding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29156136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hidden_mochii/pseuds/hidden_mochii
Summary: Oneshot's mostly
Relationships: Iorveth/Vernon Roche
Comments: 10
Kudos: 31





	1. Holding Hands

**Author's Note:**

> cw: for canon typical/period typical homophobia. 
> 
> Local man deals with internalized homophobia (and externalized, lets be honest) and finally holds his boyfriend's hand.

Vernon Roche would eat his own boots before admitting it, but Nilfgaard’s takeover of the North had been by and large a positive thing.

There had been a sort of cultural stagnation that Roche hadn’t recognized until a sudden flourishing of arts and of culture happened, from what felt like thin air there were now galleries, bookshops, and coffeehouses when there had been previously nothing which had even resembled that before. 

He didn’t really think it was his thing, although, he couldn’t exactly say no to a good cup of coffee, and there was something very nice about him being able to go to an exhibit with his own sketchbook and sort of just zone out for a couple of hours thinking about nothing other than how the lines and shading on his own paper looked. 

Iorveth, however, was an entirely different story, no longer burdened with the stress of being a guerilla commando, Roche watched him fall back in love with life and what it had now offered. It wasn’t unusual at all for them to spend leisurely weekends immersed in a world that Iorveth had admitted to not having seen since before the conjunction and one which Roche had never imagined to be possible. 

More important to that maybe though, again, not that Roche would ever admit it, thank you very much, was the shift in cultural mores. Especially when it came to relationships. Especially when it came to relationships involving a certain elf. Roche had known that he was gay since he was a teenager, there was no getting around it, no pretending, nothing. He also knew what the punishment for him would be and decided it to just not be worth the risk. 

Throughout his adult life the best he thought he could have were semi-anonymous hookups where it was never spoken of again, or what he could now recognize as the wildly imbalanced relationship that he had had with his king. 

Elves, however, didn’t have the same conservatism to them, so it had been Iorveth who had guided him towards the idea that he could love another man and that the world would not come to a crashing halt as a result of it. 

None of this though had changed the legality aspect of it, which is really what had terrified Roche out of ever considering love as something available to him.

And then, things started to change, he started to notice things, people showing affection towards one another, people who would have faced public humiliation or even death before, people like him.

It was again Iorveth who took the lead on trying to coax him into even the smallest displays of public affection, but it had to be a trap, surely, so Roche resisted and Iorveth respected that boundary. That he wasn’t ready yet. 

Until he was,

Roche wasn’t sure what it had been, but he felt something shift inside of him, that this was okay, he wouldn’t be hurt for it. Him and Iorveth had been absentmindedly browsing a bookshop, he watched his lover absolutely engrossed in a small collection of books in Hen Llinge, and he just felt a sense of contentment that he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt in his life before, it had bordered on overwhelming. Needing a second to himself, he nudged Iorveth, “Hey, I’m going to get some coffee, want some?” To which Iorveth vaguely, “hmmed”, clearly preoccupied with more important things. 

Roche took it as a yes, and wandered towards the front of the store, bought two mugs of coffee and headed back towards Iorveth. He nudged him, “Here Iorv”, Iorveth looked up, grinned and took the mug from Roche. 

Normally Roche would back away from Iorveth again and they would continue browsing at an arm’s length apart, as friends. But Roche decided then and there to keep leaning in towards Iorveth. Dammit, it shouldn’t have been so hard to find it in himself to do. He brushed his hand across Iorveth’s forearm, and clasped his own hand against Iorveth’s free hand. Almost instantly Iorveth’s long fingers curled against his own.

This wasn’t the world that he’d grown up in, and things didn’t come to a screeching halt. Roche wasn’t even sure if anyone else had even noticed. 

But Iorveth certainly had.


	2. el cuco

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the new gwent update had a blurb in it where non-human parents use Roche as a way to scare their kids into behaving a la the boogeyman and it refuses to leave my brain.

“Whats the rhyme? I’m being dead serious right now Iorv.” 

There was a petulant tone to Vernon’s voice, and Iorveth didn’t want to entertain it. 

Should Roche really be so surprised that his infamy had spun out into more nonsensical things. 

And to be fair to parents, Iorveth was fairly certain that if he’d been a child, the idea of Vernon Roche hiding in the shadows at the ready to murder and devour him would be a solid reason to never misbehave, ever. 

So really who could blame them?

They’d been in Vergen when a couple of kids clearly running away from some kind of mischief had crashed head first into them. Looking up they paled. 

“Oh shit he’s real, he’s gonna eat us” one managed to stammer out, as the two proceeded to bolt back into the direction of their trouble, likely ready to repent. 

Roche unaware that he was the stuff of bedtime stories looked dumbly at Iorveth. 

“Huh… what did they mean that I’m real and that going to eat them?” 

“You know, like the rhyme?”

“No, I don’t, what rhyme?”

And now here Iorveth was.

“What’s the rhyme, just tell me.”

“Fine. It goes something like, 

_Sleep child, sleep now…_  
_Else Roche comes_  
_And will eat you”_

Iorveth looked at his lovers face, trying to gauge a response, and all he got was a twitch of the lip, so he continued on. 

“Supposedly you’re a shadowy sort of creature who hides out on rooftops waiting for elven children to misbehave. And then when they disobey their parents you swoop in and devour them, leaving no trace” 

“Hmm, I see. Interesting.” 

Iorveth couldn’t quite parse out the emotion in Vernon’s voice, but it almost sounded a little bit hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The original rhyme is:  
> Duérmete niño, duérmete ya...  
> Que viene el Coco y te comerá


End file.
